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Thursday, November 10, 2011

I saw somewhere that you could use canned biscuits for dumplings in Chicken-n-Dumplings. I have been fighting a major cold lately and a good batch of C&D sounded perfect, so I tried it last night. It is AWESOME! This is by far the easiest and fastest recipe of chicken and dumplings I have ever made and they are REALLY good. Here is my recipe:

1 lb of chicken
1 tbsp of Salt
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 can of cream of celery soup
1 onion chopped. (I bought the prechopped onion in the little container at Pulix...I HATE chopping onion)
1 can of plain canned biscuits
1 box of chicken stock (I don't remember the ounces, but it is not the little can, but the box kind, you know what I mean?)

Boil chicken in water with the salt and then prepare however you prefer. We like ours cut in small chunks. Combine the soups, onion and chicken stock in a dutch oven or pot with a lid and bring to a boil. Once it is boiling, flatten out the biscuts and cut them into strips. I cut each biscuit into 4 strips and then cut those in half so that my dumplings are short and easier to eat. Add the dumplings one at a time to the boiling soup. Don't be alarmed when they puff up and float to the top! Once they have all been added, reduce to a simmer and cover them. Let them cook for at least 20 minutes. The dumplings will get not puffy and become dumpling-ie (not a word...whatever) and it is really delicious. Let me know if you try it. I am telling you, REALLY easy, and REALLY good!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

We trick or treat with our babysitter and her family in their neighboorhood. This year, S was a devil and D was a vampire. If you asked Rory what they were, she would tell you "Nanna is a fairy and D is a bampire, but he just drinks red juice, he won't really bite." We got a few pics when it was still day light. Thankfully.

Here, Rory is not so sure about D. She is giving him the shifty eye in the pic. The next two are not the greatest pics, but I think that her expression is funny, so I included it. Once she got used to him in the costume, it didn't bother her, but at first...she wasn't so sure.

See what I mean? We were cracking up at her looking at D like "Alright buddy, I am not so sure about you!"

This is Kev's boss and our sitter's Dad. He is pretty crazy about Rory and since Kevin was working and it wound up being on a day that he had off, he went trick or treating with us. As the evening wore on, he wound up carrying Rory on his shoulders part of the way since she didn't want to ride in the stroller, but didn't want to walk either.

My little Jessie, always on the move. I made her costume from a shirt and jeans that I picked up at the consignment sale for her school for $5 total. I split the inseams of the jeans, cut out a chaps-like shape and sewed it into the inseam and then added felt fringe and made loops on the pants at the top to hold her belt. I took a boy's button down shirt and painted it to look like a western shirt. She looked pretty cute and it was a CHEAP costume. I think I had $10 in it total counting the cow print fabric that I made the chaps out of. Kevin bought her a real western belt with her name on it at the Fiddlers Convention in Athens. I didn't figure it in to the price of the costume since she can for sure wear it again.

She is trying to pose like Nanna was. Oh goodness Rory... I am not ready for the sassy teenager poses yet!

Now, the actual Trick or Treating. I didn't realize that she was flipping us off until I uploaded this picture to the blog. Haha! Funny!

Two of S's friends came over to ToT with us. Rory was excited that there was another cowgirl. She made sure that teenage cowgirl knew that "there is only one pink Jessie."

Rory and Nanna. I took a bag to dump her candy in every few houses since I knew that the bucket would get heavy and I knew that she would be leaving candy Hansel and Gretl style on our trail.

The first house after I had emptied the bucket, she told the person that was handing out candy "Thank you, but that is not near enough...my bucket is still empty." We laughed and I assured her that there were more houses to fill up her bucket.

See...shoulder ride...told ya! It was a life saver. Bless her heart. I brought her sneakers with us in case she got tired of clomping around in boots, but she wouldn't take them off even though she told me that her feet were "super tired." I had the stroller for her to ride in, and she did some, but once Mr. G offered to let her ride on his shoulders, the stroller was quickly forgotten.

Flying. She was high up, Mr. G is about 6'4"

We got back to their house and Rory was really disappointed that we were done. She said we could go eat 5 candies and then we can go again. She had a blast and it was nice for her to have some other people to ToT with. My little Jessie really russelled up some good candy. ;)

So, I know that I mentioned that Rory is going to MDO 2 days a week from 9-1. This has been SUCH a great thing for her. She LOVES it and her teachers are just great. Last week, they went to the pumpkin patch on Tuesday and then had a Halloween parade and party on Thursday. I am combining both events into one post since they are both school.

These pics are WAAAY out of order, but for whatever reason, blogger won't let me rearrange them, so whatever.

After the kiddos got their pumpkins from the patch (aka the lawn of a local church that had been inundated with pumpkins), we tried to get a pic of them all together. The Mamarazzi were all waiting, but of course, a bunch of 2 and barely 3 year olds were not that cooperative.

They made these shirts and were all supposed to wear them to the patch. M (on the end) is a 5 day a weeker so she was coming back to the pumpkin patch the next day with the MWF group, so she didn't wear hers. They were made from their hand prints and were really cute. I couldn't find a 3 pack of shirts in Rory's size, so hers looked kinda like a dress. Whatever, it was cute and she loves wearing it around the house.The little dark haired boy next to Rory is who she says that she is going to marry. Oh brother...here we go!

This is before the patch. We were all waiting in the sanctuary of the church and "Farmer Ben" came in to read a story about Halloween and pumpkins. Here are a few of the kiddos. Rory's 'Bes Fwend' A.L. is the little girl in the shorts with the big brown and orange hair bow. She and Rory hit it off the first day and have been pretty inseparable since then.

Farmer Ben

Snack time, before picking their pumpkins. Rory and A.L. again. Told ya, they are joined at the hip and from what their teachers tell us, they are quite the gruesome twosome.

Back out to the patch. Rory was really confused about why there wasn't a hayride or any slides or play equipment available.

"I got one!"

OK, so now the Halloween parade. Rory was a "pink Jessie" from Toy Story for Halloween. I made her costume and it was really cute (as you will see tomorrow in the Halloween post) but I knew that it would get filthy and since I made the fringe on the chaps out of felt, I knew that it would not wash that great, so I whipped up this little outfit for her school Halloween day and also, to wear to our nephew's Bday party at the playground on Saturday. She was happy with it and could have cared less which one she wore, as long as she got to wear the pink boots.

The Spiderman with the mask on is Rory's self determined future spouse.You notice that they are standing together.

Well, that is it for today. Tune in tomorrow for the final pumpkin related post...Halloween!

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Get ready for a "Pumpkin-A-Palooza" for the next 3 posts. Today, it is all about Tate Farms. A few weekends ago, my Uncle Mark was in from Florida to visit. We decided that we (Kevin, Mom, Tim, Mark, Linda and Charlie) would take Rory to the pumpkin patch. My Mom and I took her last year, but Tim and the rest of the crew had never been. It was a bit warm that day, but we had a great time!

Riding the tire swing horse. Last year, she wouldn't touch these with a 10 foot pole. This year...bring it on horsie!

Rory was riding on this thing with the other kids and none of them could figure out how to make it go around so my Mom jumped on. Rory thought it was hilarious, the other kids...well they thought it was weird. Way to go Lovie!

The stereotypical pumpkin house picture. Did I mention it was slightly warm?

The corn cribs. Rory loves the idea of the corn crib, she likes jumping in and out, she is a daredevil. However, as soon as a piece of corn got in her shoe...forget it, she was outta there! She can not stand things getting in her shoe. Our trips to the beach from the summer proved that too...one piece of sand and we had a melt down on our hands.

Picking out her tiny pumpkin. She specifically requested a 'tiny pumpkin' and went through quite a few before finding her perfect one. She would pick one up, look at it, and throw it over her shoulder "Nope, this is not it" and go to the next one.

On the way out of the patch, Hollywood was wearing Lovie's glasses (because her great Mommy left hers in the car) and she sat on the pumpkin and said "Take my picture right here" and so I did.

There are more pics than this, I guess I forgot to upload them all. Oh well, I am at work and can't do it right now. Maybe later...or maybe not!

Stay tuned for rounds 2 and 3 on pumpkins in the next 2 days. I really do promise this time, I am scheduling them to post...for real!

Well, I am 30 and the "Mother" to 2 cute puppies. Ruby is a 7 year old Cairn Terrier (think Toto) and Nellie is a 5 year old yellow lab (think wild and crazy!)
I married "My Boy" on March 25, 2006 and we are still on our "Happy Honeymoon." We have a baby girl and are absolutely smitten! It's been a long road, but we are thrilled to be traveling it together!